The 10th October is World Mental Health Day, an event intended to promote awareness and demystify the illnesses that continue to stigmatise sufferers.
Each year a particular form of mental illness is addressed, and this year the central theme is Depression: A Global Crisis. There are various events and discussions going on online and in communities and I would urge everyone to engage with these, particularly as 1 in 10 people currently suffer from depression. There are many commonly held misconceptions about the illness, including the idea that people ‘just’ have depression, and I think it is particularly relevant in the current climate of recession and vast unemployment that this is being addressed.